House Republicans are waking up to a painful reality: their mid-cycle redistricting strategy, designed to lock in their majority and protect Donald Trump, is collapsing into a partisan disaster that may help Democrats instead.
The aggressive push began at Trump's urging in Texas, where Republicans redrew maps to create more GOP-controlled seats. The strategy was straightforward: prevent a Democratic takeover of the House that could lead to Trump's third impeachment. But it triggered a chain reaction. California and Virginia moved to retaliate with their own redistricting efforts, and voters in Virginia approved a new map this week that could leave Republicans holding just one seat in the state, down from five.
The backlash is now undeniable. Even Republicans are openly admitting the strategy was a miscalculation. California Rep. Kevin Kiley, who recently left the GOP to become an independent while still caucusing with Republicans, put it starkly: "I wish none of this had happened."
Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska was equally blunt. "I think it is a mistake in hindsight," he told Axios. "They thought they could just do Texas and nobody else is gonna respond?" He added: "We started a war, and you've got to play chess, think three or four moves ahead."
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania echoed the frustration. "I don't think it's favorable for anybody in America, redistricting," he said. "It's a race to the bottom."
Kiley has been warning colleagues for months about the dangers of mid-cycle redistricting and even pleaded with them to ban it legislatively. His own district became significantly bluer under California's new maps. "I wish that cooler heads had prevailed, and we'd be able to reach some sort of truce on this before it snowballed into what it's become," he said.
NRCC Chair Richard Hudson, the official tasked with protecting the House Republican majority, ducked the question of whether the strategy was worth it. "It's not for me to say, because really, it wasn't my decision," he told Axios.
The legal fight and what's next
Republicans are banking on Virginia's Supreme Court to overturn the voter-approved map, but that's a steep climb. A lower court judge did throw out Tuesday's results, but that same judge has previously been overruled by the state's high court. The state's attorney general has already appealed to the high court.
The next battleground is Florida, where state lawmakers could redraw maps to give Republicans up to five additional seats. But even there, unity is fractured. Rep. Kat Cammack said she feels confident about drawing two or three new districts but has "concerns about five."
Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar has been sounding alarms about Republicans losing ground among Latino voters, a problem that plagued Texas's new map, which relies heavily on Latino turnout matching 2024 levels. "I like my lines," Salazar said when asked about the Florida push, a non-answer that spoke volumes.
House Speaker Mike Johnson expressed confidence that Florida can move forward with redistricting without it backfiring. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries promised Democrats would respond in kind. "Trump and Republicans launched this gerrymandering war, and we've made clear as Democrats that we're going to finish it," he said.
The redistricting chess match comes as voters prepare to judge Republicans on their handling of the economy, foreign conflicts, and other issues. How the map wars affect voter sentiment remains unclear, but Republicans' internal recriminations suggest they've already decided: this gamble may prove costlier than staying put.
Author James Rodriguez: "Republicans wanted to engineer a permanent advantage and instead may have handed Democrats a roadmap for retaliation that sticks around long after the midterms."
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